Trump’s vows for revenge take on new seriousness
President-elect Trump’s vows to seek revenge have brought a renewed sense of alarm to those who have crossed ways with him now that he’s returning to the White House.
Trump routinely calls for adverse actions against his perceived enemies and often makes veiled threats – a dynamic present during his first term in office that accelerated as he battled for reelection.
After his inauguration, Trump will have new avenues to make good on those calls. He’s also assembling a team that would be well-positioned to carry out any vows for retribution.
Trump nominated former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as attorney general and several lawyers on his criminal defense team to fill out other top leadership posts at the Department of Justice.
And Trump is likely to be bolstered by his allies in Congress. House Republicans who kept their majority have also vowed to investigate Trump adversaries.
Their potential targets are nervous.
“I have heard from a number of organizational clients and some individual clients who are very scared that they may be targeted even though their conduct has been entirely lawful. They fear being targeted for their views, their statements, and for the causes and people they support. They're very scared, and I think for good reason,” said Michael R. Bromwich, an attorney with Steptoe who previously represented former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe when he was investigated by the Trump Department of Justice.
“They are concerned that they could be audited by the IRS. They could be the subject of a bogus congressional investigation. There may be even a way to conduct, or at least initiate, a bogus criminal investigation. And all with the goal of, ironically, for the first time actually weaponizing the Department of Justice.”
Trump has issued a wide variety of threats, from saying special counsel Jack Smith should be arrested, to suggesting those involved with the Jan. 6 committee could be prosecuted. He said former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the panel’s vice chair, “should go to jail.”
Trump has called some Democrats the “enemies from within” while also targeting Republicans who have criticized him.
One person fearful of being targeted said they and others similarly situated have been commiserating as well as “information sharing” ahead of potential investigations or other actions.
They hoped that if Trump has “smart people advising him,” he’d stay focused on broader policy goals.
“I just don't know if he'll be able to help himself and it just seems like he's kind of consumed by all of it,” they said.
One former senior Republican aide noted Trump won’t be surrounded by many of the same people that pushed back against his inclinations during his first time in office nor may he be restrained by the courts the same way following the Supreme Court’s finding that former presidents retain broad criminal immunity.
Those factors weighed heavily on their mind when it comes to the extent Trump will make good on his plans to follow through on any threats.
“It's really unknown. Donald Trump is somebody that you need to take seriously and literally. He has proven that. Some of his supporters have claimed they take him seriously, not literally. There are some on the left who say, ‘Well, don't take him seriously, but you have to take him literally.’ You have to take him both,” the former aide said.
“The fact that there are not guard rails this time; the fact that you do have to take him seriously and literally, I think all just raise the specter of alarm if you're someone that's been in his crosshairs in the past.”
Mark Zaid, an attorney who represents various figures who have angered Trump, has already had conversations with multiple clients.
“Some of my biggest concerns are actually not that the Trump administration would abuse the law, but that they would make use of existing law beyond the norms that we have seen at any time in the past,” said Zaid.
Zaid, who specializes in national security law, said those who work in the intelligence community have little recourse if they are fired or if their security clearance is stripped – a career damaging prospect even if one leaves government, since many work on contracts that require holding a security clearance.
In a few cases, he’s even advised “a very small number of people” to be prepared to leave the country or travel during the inauguration.
“Why? Because this is what they have said they're going to do. I mean, I don't understand why people aren't willing to take Trump and [Vice President-elect JD] Vance and the sycophants surrounding them at their word. Yeah, lots of it is rhetoric, I get it, but they've telegraphed exactly what they're going to do,” Zaid said of their vows to seek revenge.
“Trump has promised that his second administration is just that – fulfillment of promises. So it would be naive and foolish not to take that seriously, and if it doesn't come to pass, fantastic. I mean, look, I'm not telling anyone: ‘Sell your house, panic, hide all your assets’…That's ridiculous, because I can't assess the seriousness of the risk. I can only assess the seriousness of what they say they are going to do.”
What most fear is a long-running investigation – something that could come from the Justice Department or Congress.
“I think that the Justice Department, if it makes shrewd decisions, it will leave the clown show largely to the House of Representatives,” Bromwich said.
“But I can easily imagine Trump, or somebody doing Trump's bidding, calling over to the Justice Department and saying, ‘Look, I want so and so investigated who said nasty things about me.’ If an investigation is opened in response and materials are subpoenaed, being put through that kind of ringer is scary and costly and does great damage to not only the individual, but the individual’s family and associates.”
There were at least a dozen instances from Trump’s first term in which he pushed for some kind of investigation or prosecution of those he saw as enemies.
But few gained much traction and Trump would face similar pushback in a second administration, from possible apprehension at DOJ to grand juries or judges airing skepticism over investigations or any charges they might try and file.
In the case of McCabe, a grand jury declined to indict the former FBI official – countering expectations of panels that often greenlight charges.
“You had the very unusual situation where the grand jury refused to indict. That doesn't happen very often. And so I think we did a very good job of representing Mr. McCabe, but he was lucky and he knows it," Bromwich said.
“And there’s no guarantee that somebody subject to the same kind of extremely factually weak investigation wouldn't be pursued and that the grand jury wouldn't, in such a case, go along with it. So I think you can only draw very limited comfort from what happened to him. And I think people are right to be afraid.”